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[November 28 2008|02:06:00 PM] |
Sakura Matou
Reluctant Spy
Special Storyteller's Notes: If the Storyteller does not want to use the Heavens Feel scenario, he should not use any of the Statistics, Perks, or Flaws that come after a slash or the bracketed notes "after possession". In the other scenarios Sakura is a good friend to Shirou but not the heroine of the game, nor does she have the incredible powers she has here. If you want to use the anime as a guide, then she would have a lot of power and would make a viable sacrifice to activate the Greater Grail system.
Nature Autist /Avenger (Remember the entire world wronged her) [After Possession]
Demeanor Caregiver / Monster [After Possession]
STR 2/6
INT 4
CON 3/8 (Epic Level 1)
PER 5
DEX 3 /4 (Epic Level 1)
WILL 5/8 (Epic Level 1)
Derived Statistics
Fear Save 10/16 + 5 = 15/21
Attacks 1
Inititative 8/9
Luck Points 2 (+6) = 8
Life Points 30/66 (+20) = 50/86
Mana 31/42 (+100) (+30)= 161/172 + Regenerates
Perks
Acute Senses (Hearing, Sight), both at 2
Attractiveness 2
Avenger's Cloak of Shadow (Hides her body from sight, acts as 20 point armor, cannot be cut through except by enchanted weapons/spells, allows her to use her Avenger Ectoplasm Extrusion)
Avenger Ectoplasm Extrusion [does Aggravated damage instead of Bashing, range is quadrupled, Epic Will adds + 5 to damage caused, tentacles are armor piercing, victim also loses 1D4 x 5 Mana points when he is hit by one and gains 1D3 Madness points. If Sakura needs them, she can also add half the Life Points and one-quarter the Mana points removed by this attack to her own Life Point and Mana store.]
Combat Reflexes 2
Conviction 5
Damn Healthy [After Possession] 2
Danger Sense 1
Divinity: Epic CON 1, Epic DEX 1, Epic WILL 1 [slow transformation into the Black Holy Grail]
Extra Energy 10
Extra Lucky 6
Hard to Kill 3/6
Immune to Falling 2 [After Possession]
Magic Circuit 10
Mana Regeneration (Unique Perk): Because she has a direct connection to the the Greater Grail system because of her own role as the Black Holy Grail, Sakura regenerates her WILL + Magic Circuit in Mana every single round.
Occult Library 5
Resources 3
Secret (Dark Past) 2
Summon Greater Shadow: Costs 14 Mana Points, can be performed once per round. It allows for the creation of a Greater Shadow, a projected gigantic two-dimensional monster which is a significant threat to just about any conventional or supernatural enemy (see stats below).
Quick Learner
Quicksand of Shadow: Costs 20 Magic Points, covers an area equal to her WILL in feet. If anything is standing on top of that, they immediately begin sinking into the pool of shadow. The pool has a STR of 12 and 4 levels of Epic STR, and gains 2 automatic grapple checks against anything standing on it. Once the pool has gained successes equal to the subject's STR + 1, its victim has been absorbed into the pool and Sakura/Avenger can do what she/he wishes to it. Within the pool are infinite torture pits with all manner of equipment; Sakura/Avenger can also sense what the subject is thinking/feeling and devise ways to exploit that. The inside of the pool is an utter hell; each being finds itself exposed to what it fears or hates the most. Servants who become stuck inside the pool quickly lose their minds and come under the control of Avenger; the Storyteller should append "Black" to the beginning of their title (Black Saber, Black Berserker, etc.). These Black servants can then be excreted from the pool of darkness later on. While their Divinity is greatly reduced as a result of them being corrupted by Avenger's demonic energy, they gain levels of Demonic Statistics (works like the Epic advantage, only evil) and regain their WILL in Mana each round because as a result of being directly linked to the Black Holy Grail, they now have access to a near infinite store of Mana. As a result of his careful preparation, Zouken could simulate Sakura's pool of darkness with his modified Shadow Snap maneuver.
Rejuvenation (Heals 80 Life Points) 6
Student
Supernatural Senses (The Sight, Enhanced Sight, Enhanced Hearing) 6
Teleport (8 miles at a time, costs 6 Mana)
Witch
Flaws
Abusive Parent (Matou Zouken)
Abusive Partner (Matou Shinji)
Anti-Luck 2
Chronic Fatigue [After Possession]
Command Rune (3 Charges, Master of Rider)
Complementarity (Matou Zouken)
Denial (Up until her breaking point) 2
Hysteria [After Possession] 2
Inversion Impulse (influence by Zouken) 2
Love (Emiya Shirou) 2
Mental Problems (Cruelty 2) [After Possession]
Mental Problems (Violence 1) [After Possession]
Mental Problems (Guilt/Shame) 2
Obligation (Matou Family) 3
Odd Feature (Plum-colored Hair and Eyes) 2
Physical Addiction (Sex) 2*
* - During the Heavens Feel scenario, Sakura fell ill because of her unstable Mana and often required sex. If a day went by when she did not have some way to heal her Mana store this way, she'd take 1D6x2 Lethal damage. During the rest of the time, her modified body (which had received several crest worms and other supernatural parasites) automatically responded to the presence of males, leading her to crave sex with the powerful need of an addict.
Spells: Sakura was raised as a magus by Matou Zouken and her body was heavily modified by him to become the Black Holy Grail. As a result, it's hard to say what she does and does not know. Because she is the Black Holy Grail, she can whistle up demonic Shadow beings to do her will and it's not hard to imagine her using other methods. Storytellers should not hesitate to give her access to powerful magics.
Skills
Alertness 3
Arts and Crafts (Sewing) 2
Brawl [After Possession] 6
Dodge 6
Domestic 4
Empathy 4
Etiquette 4
Influence 2
Medicine 2
Melee 4
Occultism 6
Research 4
Stealth (Move Quietly) 4
Wild Card (Intuition: Hunches) 4
Wild Card (Torture: Psychological Warfare) [After Possession] 4
Wild Card (Torture: Torture Devices) [After Possession] 5
Notes (Freely lifted from Wikipedia)
A student in her first year of high school, Sakura is the sister of Shinji Matō. After Shirō's father Kiritsugu died, Sakura often visited Shirō's home to help him with his daily chores, falling in love with him as she did so. Her real reason for doing so was that she had been ordered to do so by Matou Zouken, who had wanted to keep tabs on the heir of Kiritsugu after the Fourth Heavens Feel. Sakura is outwardly shy and timid, but possesses great inner strength. It was her love for Shirou and Rin, along with her own inner reserves, that allowed her to break Zouken and Avenger's mental control in the Heavens Feel scenario.
History
Sakura is the biological sister of Rin Tōsaka, and has been in the care of the Matō family for many years. Like most sorcerers, her father, Tokiomi Tōsaka, only chose one daughter to carry on his family's tradition believing that raising an additional child would introduce competition. Zōken Matō, an ancient ally of the Tōsaka House, offered to adopt Sakura, for his own heir, Shinji Matō, who was incapable of sorcery.
 In Fate/Zero it is revealed that Kariya Matō, now Sakura's uncle, made a deal with Zōken Matō to win the Holy Grail in exchange for her freedom from Zōken and to be able to return to the Tōsaka family. Kariya was the only member of the Matō family to love Sakura; since Kariya was a childhood friend of Aoi Tōsaka (Sakura's mother), he had become well-acquainted with Sakura and her sister. He was in love with Aoi, but gave up peacefully because she seemed to be happy accepting her engagement to Tokiomi. Since he never received training as a magus (though he had more potential in comparison to Shinji's father Byakuya Matō), he has worms implanted in him to boost his circuits, and underwent accelerated training for the coming war. The worms shortened his life span and constantly weakened body since they are eating away at his magical circuits. Considering his ever weakening body and the large mana requirement required for nature of his servant, a Berserker, it is not terribly surprising that Kariya loses the 4th Grail War, possibly at the hands of his own servant.
Under Matō care, Sakura is subjugated to physical and mental abuse on a daily basis. Zōken seeks to use her as one of his future vessels, empowered by the power of Angra Mainyu. Gathering the tainted fragments of the shattered grail from the last war, Zōken hybridizes the collected black ichor with several of his worm familiars. He implants these parasitic worms into Sakura's body; they drain her Mana but feed on her carnal impulses, drastically increasing her sexual frustration. To curb this aggravation, Zōken frequently instructs Shinji to rape Sakura. Jealous of Sakura usurping his birthright as heir of the Matō House, Shinji continues to brutally rape her of his own volition. Sakura's plum hair and eye color are direct consequences of Zōken's worms  swimming through her bloodstream. Zouken had no regard for her other than a potential body and a means to an end: she was going to become the Master of a manifested Avenger and Zouken would then assert his control over her, using her to activate and control the Greater Grail. Zouken often referred to her as "the meat", which made plain his contempt for her.
Although castigated and humiliated on a daily basis, Sakura maintains her bearings with great stoicism. She fell in love with Shirō Emiya several years ago after secretly watching him constantly attempt and fail to jump a bar (at track-and-field practice). His staying dedication inspires Sakura to endure her hardships, and her admiration gave her the confidence to approach and assist Shirō after he receives an injury. Shirō's growing relationship with Rin is a source of hatred and envy for Sakura, for she believes Rin to be the cause of all her torture. For the eleven years after her adoption, Sakura grew to resent Zōken for his cruelty, her father for sending her away, and finally Rin, who was unaware of her sister's suffering, for never coming to save her.
Sakura is the principal Master of Rider, who was summoned several days prior to the start of the 5th Holy Grail War. However, under pressure from Shinji and the desire not to fight either Shirō or Rin, Sakura yielded her Master's right to him in the form of an Artificial Pact in one of his grimoires, although Sakura retains her original, unaltered Command Seal. During the Heavens Feel scenario, Shinji's incompetence causes his uncle to sever that Artificial Pact, causing Rider to revert to Sakura's control. Rider eventually sides with Shirou, who claims he will do whatever it takes to save Sakura.
Abilities as the Black Grail
She has inherited tremendous sorcerous potential from her Tohsaka pedigree, although she has little knowledge of established incantations and her Mana supply is limited by Zōken's worms. Though she is theoretically capable of mastering the arts of the Matō family, Sakura remains better suited to the magecraft of her birth family and her body was forced to acclimatized through constant exposure to Zōken's worms in order for her to use the magecraft of the Matō. On a whim, the worms can twist Sakura into a premature form of Angra Mainyu, referred to as "The Shadow". In this state, Sakura's actions are below her threshold of awareness and are primarily directed by Zōken, who intends to use her as the Black Holy Grail to activate the Greater Holy Grail and win the Heavens Feel. However, once Sakura rejects Zōken's control and regains her central consciousness, she becomes Dark Sakura, a rancorous and psychotic distortion of her normal self. In this form, her reasoning and emotions are severely impaired and she is indiscriminately destructive to everything around her.
Dark Sakura has an unlimited supply of Mana, but the amount she can expel at any derivative is limited by her number of magic circuits. Her touch is highly corrosive, dissolving organic matter and converting the base elements into pure Mana. When an astral being, such as a Servant, is absorbed into Dark Sakura's shadows, that Servant's mentality is corrupted by her evil influence, while their offensive power is considerably augmented. Dark Sakura can either excrete the Servant from her Shadows as one of her own Black Servants, or she can simply consume the Servant and the Servant's power will further her transformation into the Black Holy Grail. She is also capable of forming tentacle appendages from her body, as well as birthing shadow monstrosities that follow her general intent but otherwise operate independently. Finally, Dark Sakura can spontaneously regenerate (as represented by her Rejuvenation power) , allowing her to recover from mortal wounds within minutes of receiving them. Her Servants have the level 4 version of the same gift.
The Greater Shadows that Sakura can whistle up have
STR 9, CON 8, DEX 5,
PER 4, WILL 4, INT 2
and have impressive combat statistics and perks (Combat Reflexes 5, Damn Healthy 4-6, Magickal Resistance 3, Reduced Damage [1/10th from unenchanted attacks], Regeneration [per round], Brawl, Melee, and Dodge all at 6 or better) and melee attacks that do Lethal damage. Each Greater Shadow can only be hurt by powerful magic attacks. Several Greater Shadows can cooperate together to form a limited version of Quicksand of Shadow, or can restrain and hold down a target. Greater Shadows generally follow Sakura's orders, but can wander off and cause mayhem on their own initiative as well.
Role in the Fate Stay Night game:
Sakura only plays a minor supporting role in both Fate and Unlimited Blade Works, but she is the main female to the third arc, Heavens Feel. Zōken Matō, disgusted at the ineptitude of Shinji as a Master, begins a genocide against the other Servants with help from True Assassin and Sakura. Berserker, Lancer, Saber, and Archer are all felled by this unholy trinity, and Sakura regurgitates Black Saber and an undead, blinded Black Berserker as assistants. At night, she goes on a rampage throughout Fuyuki City, ingesting large numbers of innocents for Mana to keep her alive. Gilgamesh eventually confronts and impales Sakura's body with several Noble Phantasms from within his Gate of Babylon, but she regenerates at an impossibly fast rate and consumes him as well.
Recognizing the devastation she has wrought, Sakura seeks out her grandfather to force him into ending her life. Along the way, Shinji attempts to blackmail her into sex, threatening to tell Shirō of his history of raping her. Horrified at this prospect, Sakura kills Shinji and succumbs to her internal evil. She then becomes Dark Sakura and abducts Ilya, hoping to use her as the core for a new Holy Grail.
After Shirō and Kotomine rescue Ilya, Dark Sakura kills True Assassin and purges her body of Zōken's worms. She is confronted by Rin in the chamber of the Greater Holy Grail beneath Mount Enzō, her power equally matched by the Jeweled Sword of Zelretch. Rendering Sakura's shadows useless, Rin makes her way to Sakura, but is unable to give the finishing blow due to her love of her sister. Rin embraces Sakura even after Sakura has stabbed her in panic. Realizing Rin's love, Sakura again starts resisting her evil long enough for Shirō to dispel Angra Mainyu/Avenger's grip on her soul with his copy of Rule Breaker. Shirō then attempts to trace Excalibur but in the True ending, Ilya intervenes, closes the gate, and performs the Heavens Feel on Shirō to keep him alive - and he remains alive, but they have to attach his soul to a puppet they purchased from one of the Aozakis. (In the Normal ending, Shirō does trace Excalibur and destroys the Grail, but his life extinguishes soon after. Sakura, refusing to accept Shirō's death, continues to live in Emiya house, forever waiting for Shirō).
After her dark self is destroyed, Sakura's body is left containing vast amounts of mana. She ends up living with Rider, with the Servant's existence sustained by Sakura's Mana pool.
In Fate/Hollow Ataraxia, Sakura lives a peaceful life in Fuyuki City, which Rin has left in Sakura's care while she is at the Mage's Association, and Rider comments that Sakura is now the popular new captain of the school archery club. Sakura's dark side still exists, but appears only for comic relief. In Eclipse, the bonus episode of Ataraxia, Rider and Sakura seem to work together to seduce Shirō and engage in a threesome with him. Actually this is all Rider's doing, trying to get Shirō to pursue Sakura more aggressively. Yet in the middle Shirō realizes the truth and reverses her spell on her, in the end revealing to viewers that Rider herself has deep feelings for Shirō. Sakura appearing in this episode is only a conjecture by Rider's spell, a representation of Rider's true intentions of her actions.
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Things are gearing up for my departure on the 15th of August. I have to admit I have some mixed feelings; on the one hand this is a rare opportunity which I have to seize, and I want to pay down my loans and save up for a house, going to Japan means saying goodbye to IRL hanging out with most of my friends. Skype, e-mail, and facebook are all ways to stay in touch, but nothing compares to the dinner and movie meets. 
I've been a bit more quiet than usual (save for building up The Scarlet Devil Mansion Library), but I'm going to break that silence to share these with you. 
I made some lemon frozen yogurt to help cheer me up while I recover:
Protip: as long as you are cooking the sauce, ingredients, and cheese on top of the dough, you don't have to watch the pizza dough when you are cooking it to yield the pizza crust. No bubbling should occur. 
So our first podcast (read: talk radio show like mp3) 
So, the 
